Perhaps it is not surprising that there are few people
employed nowadays with the right knowledge to keep a now obsolete aircraft
flying.What is surprising however, is
that for younger aircraft still in service, there remains this issue of experienced
engineers retiring and the risk associated with that.

A longer-term, enduring approach is one that does not let
engineers get anywhere near retirement age with all that valuable knowledge
locked inside their heads.That
knowledge is not theirs alone since it has been created and accumulated on their
employers’ time and with the help of their colleagues.It should be treated as such.

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

We’re all individuals, keen to be treated as such but, put
us in big groups and I’ll wager we’re most of us all the same.Why do I say this?

This weekend I was meeting a friend of a friend who had
heard what I do for a living but wanted to know more; so I explained briefly what
knowledge management is.My new
acquaintance asked me, “Do you enjoy what
you do?” and I replied, “I love it.”He asked me why and so I said, “Because what I do brings me directly into
contact with the human condition.”

His frown showed I needed to explain what I meant and he
seemed interested enough to hear my take on what.

“Because basically, no
matter what we do for a living, where we live or how old we are…we’re pretty
much all the same.We want to be
respected, to feel like we make a difference.We want to be rewarded and we want security, as far as possible.Most of us prefer to be popular than
unpopular and we don’t like hurting other people, or even merely embarrassing
them.We want people to think well of us
and most of us avoid conflict whenever possible.”

He nodded along and then said, “So?”So I continued, “So, when faced with a situation that we
fear will put these things at risk, we all do the same thing.We minimise embarrassment for ourselves and
others; we avoid awkwardness and far prefer choppy waters to be smoothed than
stirred up even more.We mostly tell
people what we think they want to hear or, at the very least, will pull our
punches so as not to make things any worse.In short, we won’t tell anyone what we really think or how we really
feel unless we feel 100% safe and secure and whoever feels like that at work?”

Again, he asked, “So?”
“So…if we are ever going to improve anything, if we are ever going to learn
from the past and make the future better, we need to know all that there is to
know about whatever problem we face.We
need people to be honest, which means we need to let them feel it’s okay to be
honest, which means they mustn’t fear demotion or the sack if they tell the
truth, or even just embarrassment for offering a different point of view.That takes time and effort and real, brace
leadership from those at the top.They
need to show by what they do and say that they value integrity and honesty and
moral courage because otherwise all they’ll get, indeed all that most
organisations get is defensiveness, dishonesty and fear.”

I pulled out a pen and piece of paper and drew this picture of
2 stick-men with ‘speech bubbles’representing
their conversation and ‘thought clouds’ above each man’s head.“Most
problems in the world are down to poor communication, with people either
unable, or downright refusing, to express what they think and feel. This is
because they’re unsure what they think or feel or because they know all too
well what they think or feel but are uncomfortable with sharing that with
others.Now, we tell each other the
things in the speech bubbles and yet everything we do is shaped by what is in
the thought clouds. Getting people to share those inner thoughts and feelings
is at the heart of what knowledge management and organisational learning is all about.It’s incredibly difficult and, quite frankly,
a thankless task but, when it works, if only briefly, it’s very rewarding.”

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

A
few weeks ago I went camping in Dorset with my family and that of my brother. He and his wife have
been camping a few times and have a lot of the necessary gear.My wife and I have not, so we borrowed loads
of bits and pieces from a friend – I wasn’t going to spend a small fortune on
the latest tent technology only to be informed that we would not be camping
again.

As things turned out, the week was a great success, despite
the pouring rain for much of it.Furthermore, the whole experience proved a useful vehicle for
demonstrating the value of knowledge management.A few examples:

Knowledge
is most useful when recent and relevant – I served for over 10 years as an
officer in the British Army and have spent more than my fair share of nights
outdoors, under canvas, under trees and under nothing else but the stars.Now, some of my experience was, and will
always be, useful for a domestic camping trip but I will be the first to admit
that my brother’s more recent and directly relevant experience was far more
useful.This should be borne in mind
when planning a Peer Assist,
for example.Having him on hand when it
came to erecting and collapsing our tent proved invaluable and, whilst both
operations were time-consuming, they’d have taken far longer had I not had his
knowledge on hand or, worse still, had I wanted to ‘do it all myself’;

Lessons
are not learned until you change something – throughout the week, we all
noticed things that either did not go as well as we had hoped (e.g. an
inflatable mattress with even the slightest hole in it will leave you lying on
the cold ground come morning) or far surpassed our expectations (e.g. portable ‘fire
pits’ (i.e. the inner metal rim of a lorry wheel) are excellent and well worth
the small charge to hire them).When
this happened, someone would invariably sing out, “Ha, a lesson learned!” only
for me to boringly respond, “No, a lesson identified.
It’ll only be learned if we change things next time round.”

Clothing
and equipment lists can be valuable knowledge assets –
this first time camping as a family was a bit of a leap in the dark as we weren’t
100% sure what we needed and ended up with far more stuff than necessary.I need to create a list based on: what we
used and was invaluable; what we had with us but never used and what we lacked
but would really like to have with us next time around.The problem is, I’ve not yet created this
list and already my memory is fading, demonstrating my next point, namely:

Wait too
long to capture knowledge and its gone – when we got back from our trip:
tired, in need of a decent shower and still just about on speaking terms with
one another, the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write up the
lessons of our trip.But I should have
done it there and then because with every passing day my recollections become less
reliable and I run the risk of filling in the gaps with rubbish, as sometimes
happens when project lessons capture
sessions are held far too long after the project is finished.Perhaps I’m being harsh, most projects don’t capture
lessons at all so some late and inaccurate ones might be better than nothing.

So there we are: camping holidays – not for everyone but as
a way of demonstrating how KM helps us save time, stay dry and have fun, they’re
great.

Now, I wonder if I can book a beach holiday in the Caribbean
on the company, just to compare and contrast….

What I'm reading

About Me

I help organisations learn from their experience, so that they can embed good practice and address poor performance in equal measure.
Creating an environment that is supportive, collaborative and intellectually curious gets people to challenge assumptions and be honest with themselves and one another. This entails a whole lot more than "lessons learned" - and results in the creation, growth and nurturing of a true learning culture.